A Vancouver lawyer who launched a claim against his law firm’s policy that forces equity partners to retire in that role and give up their ownership shares at age 65, has had his case dismissed by the Supreme Court of Canada.

In the 1980s, the equity partners — those partners with an ownership interest in the firm — voted to adopt a provision in their partnership agreement stipulating that included the retirement caveat.

But in 2009, when he was 64, McCormick brought forward a complaint alleging that this provision in the partnership agreement constituted age discrimination contrary to a section of the B.C. Human Rights code.

His firm applied to have the complaint dismissed on the grounds that McCormick, as an equity partner, was not in the type of workplace relationship covered by the Code.

The Human Rights tribunal concluded there was an employment relationship.

Fasken’s application for judicial review of that decision was dismissed by the B.C. Supreme Court, but the province’s Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, concluding that McCormick, as a partner, was not in an employment relationship pursuant to the Code.

In a ruling released Thursday, dismissing McCormick’s appeal, Canada’s high court said deciding who is in an “employment relationship” for purposes of the Human Rights Code means examining control exercised by an employer over working conditions and pay, and corresponding dependency on the part of a worker.

“The test is who is responsible for determining working conditions and financial benefits and to what extent does a worker have an influential say in those determinations?’’ the court said.

“Ultimately, the key is the degree of control and the extent to which the worker is subject and subordinate to someone else’s decisionmaking over working conditions and remuneration,’’ the court said.

As an equity partner, and based on his ownership, sharing of profits and losses, and the right to participate in management, McCormick, was part of the group that controlled the partnership, not a person vulnerable to its control . . . ’’ the court ruled.

The Human Rights tribunal in B.C. therefore had no jurisdiction over McCormick’s relationship with the partnership, the Supreme Court ruled.

McCormick left the firm in 2012.

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